


Record

by Skylark



Series: HSWC 2013 [21]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Absent Parents, Canon Compliant, Gen, Postcards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk finds the first one in the narrow crawlspace above his apartment on his eighth birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Record

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [HSWC 2013 Bonus Round 4 Fill](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/34335) by Wildcard @ AO3. 



Dirk finds the first one in the narrow crawlspace above his apartment on his eighth birthday, when he's still small enough to fit in it. He's scraping through looking for extra supplies—orange soda, tasteless freeze-dried astronaut food, anything, just as long as it has calories—when the surface beneath his hands changes from splintery wood and scratchy insulation to a smoother softness.  
  
He lifts his hand and a small square sticks to his dusty palm. It's made of glossy paper, reflecting the light from his shades' flashlight function well enough to make him squint. He captchalogues it as _mysterious square_ (rhymes with _underwear_ —he's eight, nursery rhymes are still his bread and butter) and scoots backwards until he can dangle from the ceiling and drop. His bed breaks his fall. A puff of fiberglass dust trails in his wake, and he coughs, squinting at the sudden sunlight and holding his discovery.

It's a—postcard. He's read about these. Short missives that people used to send each other when they went on long trips, usually on the backs of photos from where they'd been.  
  
Dirk's heart thuds painfully hard in his chest.  
  
He clears the layer of dust from its surface with the tail of his shirt, using the same gentle care he uses when wiping his shades clean. The image he reveals is of a nonsensical splash of reds and oranges across a backdrop of black: Dirk's favorite color, and his brother's, tangled together until they're simply a blur.  
  
Flipping it over reveals that it was initially mailed to a P. O. box owned by one Rose Lalonde, but the letter is only half hers.  
  
 _I bet you could get into the lourve kid,_ Dirk reads. _I bet the geezers that run the joint are gonna take one look at you and go hot damn make way clear a gallery or two we got a regular michaelangelo on our hands._  
  
 _Ill write again soon._  
  
 _-ds_  
  
  
Dirk reads it three times, until every spike and loop of his brother's jittery chickenscratch scrawl is burned into his memory. By the time he's twelve, he'll have studied Dave's handwriting until he can forge it with near-perfect accuracy; but for now it's just art, hovering somewhere between Dadaism and graffiti, flaunting convention but not so much as to be illegible.  
  
He rolls from the bed and goes to his computer, leaving smears of dust across his keyboard as he looks up the Lourve. He reads about its history and development, its collections, every person that ever served on its board of directors, and finally finds an image of the painting on the postcard, his painting.  
  
He's forgotten all about his hunger. His heart feels overfull.


End file.
